Durban and East London

In Durban and East London we had planned to do two game reserve safari’s and we had both been really looking forward to it. Just from the drive to the game reserve we could tell that South Africa was not what we had been expecting. A lot of the areas that the game reserves are in have a lot of hills and bushes and tons of trees. On our first day we set out to the Tala game reserve which is a private reserve about an hour away from Durban. Private game reserves are ones that are fenced in so most of the animals can’t come and go freely. The reserves are very big as it is mandatory to be a certain size depending on what animals you have. Just like if you would go to one of the National parks like Kruger you are not guaranteed to see all the animals because they may go into the bush or be off on another part of the reserve. Once there we got into an open air land rover that would seat about 10 and went off with our guide. The first thing we saw was Ostrich and Zebra. The first Zebra’s that we saw were standing side by side with their heads pointing in different directions. Our guide said that they do this so they can have a 360 degree view of what’s going on. As we continued on our drive we saw rhinos, hippos, and tons of birds. We had two really neat experiences at this game reserve the first was that we came across a group of about 10 Giraffes. As we sat there and watched the giraffe two antelope came along and decided that they were going to fight. So our land rover and the 10 giraffe sat and watched as they fought it out with one eventually giving up. We also came up very close to a few rhino. The first set we had to go right in the bush to see and then of course had a hard time getting out after. The second set was a mother and baby (the baby was about 5 years old) who the guide said seem to still stick together. The mother had the biggest horn of all the rhinos on the reserve which was between 2-3 feet. We were able to get fairly close to them and I think we were the only group that got to see all the rhino on the reserve. We also saw a lot of warthogs which are a lot smaller than we thought. Our guide said that they are one of the strongest animals and that he has seen a leopard corner a warthog and the warthog kill the leopard. He also told us that the warthogs are the only animals on the reserve that will attempt to get out and succeed. The reserve has an electric fence that runs around the perimeter. Not only do they have to do this so they don’t lose the animals that they may have paid for but also because poaching is still very common here so they want to protect them as well. The game run in Durban was great and it was really exciting to see all the animals in their natural habitat.

The next day we arrive in East London for another day safaris this time to a reserve called Inkwenkizi that had the Big 5 animals that most people want to see when they come to Africa. The reserve was really big and they told us the President’s daughter was getting married there in a few weeks. We arrived at the reserve only to be told that they had a special surprise for us...we could pet Cheetah’s! They keep the cheetahs in a very big enclosure with bushes and trees because they are endangered and because they are still heavily hunted. They seem to have a lot of problems with other people coming onto game reserves and hunting animals that are highly sought after like the big cats. As we came into the enclosure where they keep the Cheetah’s the man whistled and said “Come on guys” as one of the Cheetah’s ran up the hill. We were able to pet them as they purred and rolled all around. It was pretty amazing. We then set of in our land rover again. This reserve was very hilly and at times had to go up some very steep rock. We didn’t see as many animals as we had the day before because this reserve was so much bigger to house the Big 5. We did see ostrich, zebra, antelope and some birds. We were lucky and saw the only elephants on the reserve before they went off into the bush. The big thing we were all waiting to see was the lions. This reserve had white lions which are a bit rarer and they were trying to breed them so they had them separated in this huge enclosure. The lions of course were close to the entrance into their section I’m assuming because they could hear people and wanted to know what’s going on. As we entered into the enclosure there was a man with a rifle watching just in case something happened. We were surprised because our guide didn’t seem to have a gun or anything which most safari guides have on them. As we came in to the enclosure the lions were just sitting all together under a bush. We drove past them a bit and we were going to go around to see them from a different angle when the biggest male lion got up and started to walk about 25 feet from the truck. He didn’t seem overly happy that we were there but decided to sit down in the grass and then out of nowhere he jumped up and ran at our car coming within about 2 feet of it. I think everyone watching gasped and we were all a bit stunned. You definitely realize how it’s hard to even have time to react when an animal that big is running towards you. Our guide told us that he was just bluffing and that lions don’t usually do anything unless they have to. He ended up going back to the other lions and sitting down with them. This game reserve experience was great. Although we didn’t get to see as many animals as we had the day before the big cats made up for it. The only animal out of the big 5 we didn’t see was the leopard which apparently is the only animal that they can’t keep on the reserve because it is able to get over the fence so it just comes and goes. 

The village just outside of the reserve ran out of water so they asked if they could drill for water on the reserve

Ostrich

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Durban

The guide said all the animals like this tree

These birds were bright blue

Hippo

He's not to sure about us...

He decided to rest for a minute...

And then he decided to run at the car!

The antelope were fighting and the giraffes got scared and ran

Hippos

Sea Days

With a lot of days at sea by now we had come to know some of the other passengers a bit better. We had met a few couples who we would occasionally talk to and instead of people asking us why we were on the ship they have started to ask if we were really having fun with the old folks. There are only two passengers who are younger than us on the ship. Tommy who is around 2 and is staying down the hall and is always getting away from his parents even when he has his leash on. The crew seem to have become really close with him and most of them call him Tom Tom now and help to try and corner him when he gets away.  There is also a 6 year old boy as well but he is very quiet. On one of our sea days we decided to try out Bingo which people take very seriously here. It was a bit embarrassing as Frankie who runs Bingo made sure everyone knew that it was our first time there and that we weren’t crew we actually were passengers. Although it was fun we didn’t have much luck at Bingo and may try again soon.  We have had a few guest lecturers on board one of them being Major General Mark Rosenker who worked for Bush. He had a few interesting lectures on the security of the president and what goes into moving him from place to place.

We have been going through a lot of different weather on board. One day the water was so calm it looked like glass and the next it was so rocky. A lot of people became sea sick so the decks were pretty empty which is probably a good thing because the water was coming onto the open top deck of the ship. The bad weather lasted a few days and even kept us out of Richard’s Bay one of our ports.

Mozambique

Our tour in Mozambique started off at the local market. The market started off similar to the one in Seychelles with fish and vegetables but then as you kept walking there were stalls for hair products, cashews, souvenirs and shells. Mozambique has a lot of illegal immigrants and on the way out of the market we saw two police officers with rifles grab this guy and pull him along down the street. Our guide told us later on the bus that they wanted to see his I.D. and he didn’t want to show them. We did see them letting him go after. Next we took a tour of the city and saw Gustave Eiffel’s steel house which was made for a governor but after it was built they realized it was too hot to live in. Afterwards we went to a natural history museum where we saw a stuffed lion that was given to a governor as a present and also some other animals most of which were hard to tell if they were real or not. At the end of our tour we found out that our guide Irena was 16 years old. The unemployment rate in Mozambique is very high and Irena has 2 older sisters and 3 younger sisters so I think she is helping out her Mum by guiding a bit. She said that she was missing her first class of the day but after the tour would be going to school until the evening. We didn’t overly like Mozambique although we didn’t really see a lot of it and it wouldn’t be on our to visit list again or at least not Maputo which was the town we docked in.

The old train station

Train Station

Where Blood Diamond was filmed

Local Market

Iron House

Natural History Museum

Stuffed Lion

People line up at the bus to sell stuff

Irena our tour guide

African dancing on the beach

Pirates on the High Seas

In between Dubai and Mozambique we had 9 days at sea along the Oman coast and through the Somali basin. When we had boarded the ship in Singapore we found out that the Seychelles port of call had been cancelled because there had been so much pirate activity in the area but after checking in with local authorities they decided to re-instate it. Pirates were on a lot of people’s minds during these days at sea. Although it is not common that they would hijack a cruise ship they have in the past (Seaborne Spirit in 2006) it was still a bit of a worry for the crew and passengers. There were numerous hijackings in the area we were sailing in one in particular off the coast of Oman and it was hard to not be aware that it was a possibility and that it could happen to us. We had a lot of extra security on the lower decks who would stand watch 24 hours a day and we also had to practice a pirate safety drill called “Code Sierra Papa”. During the drill you have to sit in your room with the door open so you can get any info you need from the stewards. It ended up being a way for us to meet some of our neighbours (the ship’s priest is staying across the hall and told us that if pirates attacked the ship we had the safest rooms because we had no windows). Also on board to defend against a possible attack we have these huge water hoses as well as what’s called a sound cannon. A sound cannon is this circular machine with a remote control that when pointed at a boat or skiff it will blow out the ear drums of those on the boat without hurting anyone on the ship. Overall we felt pretty safe on board especially with the presence of a lot of naval ships in the area...although a group of pirates did try to take over a naval ship last month at night thinking that it was an oil tanker...boy were they wrong.